Every school of spirituality refers in some way to the most life-giving sources of sanctification, the Holy Sacraments. Sister Faustina regarded all the sacraments, especially the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Eucharist, as great gifts of Divine Mercy. Jesus Himself uncovered before her the magnitude of these gifts. Tell souls, Jesus spoke about the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where they are to look for solace; that is, in the Tribunal of Mercy. There the greatest miracles take place, are incessantly repeated. To avail oneself of this miracle, it is not necessary to go on a great pilgrimage or to carry out some external ceremony; it suffices to come with faith to the feet of My representative and to reveal to him one’s misery, and the miracle of Divine Mercy will be fully demonstrated. Were a soul like a decaying corpse so that from a human standpoint, there would be no restoration and everything would already be lost, it is not so with God. Oh, miserable are those who do not take advantage of the miracle of God’s mercy! (Diary 1448).

Sister Faustina marvelled at merciful love of God present in every sacrament. The most she wrote about Jesus’ goodness who when departing from this world, wanted to remain with us and left Himself in the Sacrament of the Altar, opening ajar the door to His mercy. There is no misery that could exhaust You, she exclaimed in delight, You have called us all to this fountain of love, to this spring of God’s compassion. Here is the tabernacle of Your mercy, here is the remedy for all our ills. To You, O living spring of mercy, all souls are drawn; some like deer, thirsting for Your love, others to wash the wound of their sins, and still others, exhausted by life, to draw strength (Diary 1747). The magnitude of this gift, wrote Sister Faustina, cannot be comprehended by any brain, human or angelic; that is why, we shall only get to know it fully in eternity. If the angels were capable of envy, she confessed in another Diary entry, they would envy people Holy Communion, in which God unites with His creatures most closely. He does not enter into such close union even with the angels (c.f. Diary 1804).

The awareness of the magnitude of this gift was the reason why there arose within her a spirit of profound gratitude and great respect towards such a humble Divine majesty; there also arose a feeling of great love for the One who had loved man to the end, and was ready to give up His own life for sinful man, becoming for him the Bread, which gives eternal life. She got to know the divinising power of the Eucharist and she knew how to make good use of it; that is why, her life became totally transformed both in her thinking and actions; to use the language of St. Paul, the old man within her had died, and the new man, modeled upon Christ, in whom all faculties were harmoniously united and focused on the supreme good, that is God, was. The manifestations of God’s mercy in the Eucharist, are particularly visible in those aspects which were experienced by Sister Faustina. The Eucharist was for her an area of her personal encounter with living God; it was a space of her co-sacrifice, in which she offered herself up together with Christ for the salvation of the world as well as of her close union with Him in the Holy Communion.

Dimensions in Experiencing the Eucharist

In his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharystia, the Holy Father describes the mystery of the Eucharist, among others, in terms of sacrifice, presence and feast (EE 61), drawing attention to the integral character of the above dimensions of the Eucharist. Saint Faustina too had experienced the Eucharist through the same dimensions, considering each of them in the context of the mystery of Divine Mercy.

Presence – encounter

In the Eucharist, a Christian encounters Jesus who is present in it both in the real sense as well as substantially. During transubstantiation, bread and wine become His Flesh and Blood. In the Eucharist, it is above all the paschal mystery of Christ which He had announced earlier on in His teaching and anticipated through His deeds that is being made present. Jesus allowed me to enter the Cenacle, Sister Faustina wrote about the institution of the Eucharist, and I was witness to what happened there. However, I was most deeply moved when, before consecration, Jesus raised His eyes to heaven and entered into a mysterious conversation with His Father. It is only in eternity that we shall really understand that moment. His eyes were like two flames; His face was radiant, white as snow; His whole personage full of majesty, His soul full of longing. At the moment of Consecration, love rested satiated – the sacrifice fully consummated. Now only the external ceremony of death will be carried out – external destruction; the essence [of it] is in the Cenacle (Diary 684).

Every Eucharist is the embodiment of this exceptional event in the history of the humankind, in which when dying on the cross the Son of God, had saved the world and having loved the people till the end, He left Himself in the Sacrament of the Altar. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us, this event is also exceptional because, all other historical events happen once, and they pass away, swallowed up in the past. The Paschal Mystery of Christ, by contrast, cannot remain only in the past because…it transcends all times while being made present in them all. The event of the Cross and Resurrection “abides” and draws everything toward Life (CCC 1085). The Eucharist enables people living in different parts of the world and in different histo- rical periods to participate in this unique paschal mystery of Christ; it allows one to transcend the boundaries of time and space so as to reach Christ in the event of the Cross and Resurrection.

For Sister Faustina, each and every Eucharist constituted a personal encounter with Jesus; it was a form of participation in His passion, death and resurrection. She experienced in a mystical way this real presence of Jesus on many an occasion, though earlier on she only believed in it. Today during Holy Mass I saw the Crucified Jesus, she recorded in her Diary, Jesus was nailed to the cross and was in great agony. His suffering pierced me, soul and body, in a manner which was invisible, but nevertheless most painful. Oh, what awesome mysteries take place during Mass! With what great devotion should we listen to and take part in this death of Jesus (Diary 913-914).

The Eucharist is the space in which heaven joins the earth. In this liturgy it is not only the pilgrimising Church on earth, but also the Church of the saved. Hence during the Holy Mass Sister Faustina also saw Our Lady, the saints (e.g. St. Ignatius of Loyola) as well as the heavenly spirits which continually worship God. During Holy Mass, before the Elevation, she wrote in her Diary, this spirit began to sing these word, «Holy, Holy, Holy». His voice was like that of a thousand voices; it is impossible to put it in words. Suddenly, my spirit was united with God, and in an instant I saw the grandeur and the inconceivable holiness of God and, at the same time, I realised the nothingness I am of myself. I knew, more distinctly than ever before, the Three Divine Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Diary 472).

Through her mystical experience, Sister Faustina helps us to see the living presence of Jesus in the Eucharist; she invites us to sit down at the same table with Him at the Cenacle and to follow Him to Golgotha so as to let Him save us at the foot of His cross, free us from evil, strengthen us in good and go towards the resurrection. And this possibility of meeting the living God in the Eucharist constitutes for her an inexpressible gift of His merciful love. Man could not have done anything to deserve such a gift; therefore, all he can do now is to accept it by coming to the Holy Mass, so as to meet His Creator and Saviour.

Co – Sacrifice

The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross, making it possible for people in all historical periods to attain reconciliation with God, as well as to attain salvation which Christ obtained once and for all for the humankind on Golgotha and which He passed on to us in the Eucharist. What is repeated is only the celebration of the Eucharist, through which Christ’s redemptive sacrifice is always present in time (EE 12), but the sacrifice of Christ is the very same one He had made 2000 years ago, and we, the people who live in the 21st century, have access to it through the Eucharist.

St. Faustina was able to gain a profound insight into this reality. Undoubtedly, apart from great faith, she was helped in this by her visions of the suffering Christ who offered Himself for the world. During Holy Mass, she wrote in one of the entries of her Diary, I saw the Lord Jesus nailed upon the cross amidst great torments. A soft moan issued from His Heart. After some time, He said, «I thirst. I thirst for the salvation of souls. Help Me, My daughter, to save souls. Join your sufferings to My Passion and offer them to the heavenly Father for sinners» (Diary 1032). In the Eucharistic visions, the Lord Jesus showed Sister Faustina what great price He had paid for the work of saving man and the world; He taught her love and the value of sacrifice and suffering: Today, during Mass, I saw the Lord Jesus in the midst of His suffe- rings, as though dying on the cross. He said to me, «My daughter, meditate frequently on the sufferings which I have undergone for your sake, and then nothing of what you suffer for Me will seem great to you. You please Me most when you meditate on My Sorrowful Passion, so that they may have infinite value before My majesty» (Diary 1512, c.f. Diary 1628).

Sister Faustina understood perfectly that Jesus’ merciful love which she got to know and experienced in the Eucharist, calls for reciprocity. During Holy Mass, she recorded in her Diary, I was so enveloped in the great interior fire of God’s love and the desire to save souls that I do not know how to express it. I feel I am all aflame. I shall fight all evil with the weapon of mercy. I am being burned up by the desire to save souls. I traverse the world’s length and breadth and venture as far as its ultimate limits and its wildest lands to save souls. I do this through prayer and sacrifice (Diary 745). Many times during the Eucharist, she suffered stigmatic pains in her hands, legs as well as in her side; she also experienced the pain of the crown of thorns (Diary 759, 942 et al.) thanks to which she was able to participate more fully in Jesus’ work of saving souls.

She knew perfectly well that the Eucharist not only makes present the salvific work of Christ, but that it also offers one a chance to participate in this work through co-sacrificing one’s own life and laying down on Jesus’ altar all that makes up human life. Each day, while participating in the Holy Mass, she offered herself up together with Jesus to the heavenly Father, abandoning herself totally and completely to His holy will (c.f. Diary 668, 1246). She wanted so much to become like Jesus sacrificing Himself for the salvation of the world that she asked God to transform her into another host. I want to be a living host for You, she prayed, You are a great and powerful Lord; You can grant me this favour. And the Lord answered me, «You are a living host, pleasing to the Heavenly Father. But reflect: What is a host? A sacrifice. And so…?». O my Jesus, I understand the meaning of «host», the meaning of sacrifice. I desire to be before Your Majesty a living host; that is, a living sa- crifice that daily burns in Your honour (Diary 1826). Sister Faustina offered this sacrifice every day silently and in a concealed way, just as the presence of Jesus is concealed in the white Host.

Her daily co-sacrifice with Jesus during the Holy Mass testifies to a mature faith, hope and love for God and the people; it also testifies to her daily and ever fuller participation in the life of Jesus and His salvific mission in which God’s mercy was revealed to the world most fully.

Feast

The Eucharist is intrinsically directed to the inward union of the faithful with Christ through communion (EE 16). It is a wonderful feast during which Jesus feeds us with His Body and Blood and by becoming united with us most closely, gives us an anticipation of eternal life and increases within us the gift of His spirit (c.f. EE 17). The Communion gives us a foretaste of heaven and is a guarantee of our resurrection, for as Jesus said, Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day (Jn 6:54).

Sister Faustina was fully aware of the gift of the closest possible union with Jesus in the Holy Communion. This conviction is clearly visible in her prayer in which she beseeched the Lord that the healthy Blood of Jesus might circulate in her veins and His Body might transform her ailing organism (c.f. Diary 1089). In the Holy Communion, she observed the unfathomable love of Jesus who stoops so low as to become the food for creatures and through this He becomes closely united with them. O merciful Jesus, she confessed in a prayer, how longingly You hurried to the Upper Room to consecrate the Host that I am to receive in my life. Jesus, You desired to dwell in my heart. Your living Blood unites with mine. Who can understand this close union? My heart encloses within itself the Almighty, the Infinite One. O Jesus, continue to grant me Your divine life. Let Your pure and noble Blood throb with all its might in my heart. I give You my whole being. Transform me into Yourself and make me capable of doing Your holy will in all things and of returning Your love (Diary 832).

Being aware of the magnitude of the gift offered in the holy feast, she took great care to receive the Divine Guest into her soul with dignity, faith and love. As is borne out by her booklet entitled My Preparation to the Holy Communion, she showed considerable ingenuity here. At one time, she would receive Jesus as her Beloved; on another occasion, she would receive Him as a King, Lord, Giver and Love itself. Yet, in all situations, she tried to show her deep faith and fervent love, so as to fill Jesus with joy and derive from the encounter with Him strength, light and power to fight with the hardships of everyday life. I fear the day when I do not receive the Holy Communion, she confessed, this Bread of the Strong gives me all the strength I need to carry on my mission and the courage to do whatever the Lord asks of me. The courage and strength that are in me are not of me, but of Him who lives in me – it is the Eucharist (Diary 91). The Holy Communion increased her spiritual strength and gave her courage to bear everyday sacrifices (Diary 1386); it helped her to overcome the fear of suffering (Dairy 876); it strengthened her in fulfilling faithfully the will of God and completely transformed her life. All the good that is in me, she confessed, is due to Holy Communion. I owe everything to it. I feel that this holy fire transformed me completely (Diary 1392). It is only in eternity that we shall know the great mystery effected in us by Holy Communion. O most precious moments of my life! (Diary 840).

She described Holy Communion, above all, as an inconceivable gift of God’s mercy. It was only God’s merciful love for man that could afford to endow man with such a gift. Jesus also shared with Sister Faustina His pain associated with the fact that this gift of His love often remains unrecognised and is frequently rejected by man. Oh, how painful it is to Me, He told her, that souls so seldom unite themselves to Me in Holy Communion. I wait for souls, and they are indifferent toward Me. I love them tenderly and sincerely, and they distrust Me. I want to lavish My graces on them, and they do not want to accept them. They treat Me as a dead object, whereas My Heart is full of love and mercy. In order that you may know at least some of My pain, imagine the most tender of mothers who has great love for her children, while those children spurn her love. Consider her pain. No one is in a position to console her. This is but a feeble image and likeness of My love (Diary 1447, c.f. Diary 1385). This object lesson concerning God’s merciful love in the Holy Communion, urged Sister Faustina to an even greater love and it made her wish to make up to Him for the indifference, ungratefulness and coldness of souls (c.f. Diary 1385).

To Live By the Eucharist

Sister Faustina tried to prolong the encounter with Eucharistic Jesus so as to make it last the whole day: Jesus, when You come to me in Holy Communion, You who together with the Father and the Holy Spirit have deigned to dwell in the little heaven of my heart, I try to keep You company throughout the day, I do not leave You alone for even a moment (Diary 486). She tried to keep Jesus’ company even at times when she was busy working and dealing with others.

The fruits of experiencing the Eucharist in the spiritual life of Sister Faustina were proportional to the efforts and preparations which she made each day. Not only did she try to live in the state of sanctifying grace, but she also experienced all the events and everyday problems in God’s presence, uniting with Jesus who lived in her soul. Even when she was ill, she got up early, so as to engage in meditation even before Holy Mass and in this way prepare herself to it in carefully (Diary 802). The encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist was at the very centre of each day, for these were the most important moments in her life, as she herself confessed. She longed for this moment of the day and thanked the Most Holy Trinity for each Eucharist she took part in (Diary 1804). She admitted quite sincerely that if it was not for the Eucharist, she would have no courage to go any further along the way He has marked out for her (Diary 91, 1037).

She spent a lot of time each day adoring the Blessed Sacrament. I will spend all my free moments at the feet of the Master hidden in the Blessed Sacrament. He has been tutoring me from my most tender years (Diary 82), she wrote in her Diary. She went up to the tabernacle with all of her life’s problems, in moments of joy and sorrow, so as to share her entire life with Je- sus. I have received most light, she admitted, during adoration which I made lying prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament for half an hour every day throughout Lent. During that time, I came to know myself and God more profoundly (Diary 147). Jesus encouraged her to meditate upon His love in the Blessed Sacrament. Here, I am entirely yours, soul, body and divinity (Diary 1770), He assured her. When she could not attend Mass in the chapel, she adored Jesus within her soul. What happiness it is to have the consciousness of God in one’s heart and to live in close intimacy with Him (Diary 1135), she admitted.

Sister Faustina expressed her love for the Eucharist, as the inconceivable gift of God’s merciful love for man, among others, by adopting a predicate which she added to her monastic name. She signed her notes and writings with the appellation: Sister Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament, which testifies to her great love of the Eucharist.